Across several industries, such as oil and gas, mining, aerospace, automotive, electronics, and manufacturing, the transportation and reorientation of large, often heavy, objects may be required. Various methods, techniques, and devices have been used to accommodate the transportation and reorientation of objects. In certain applications, complex machinery can be used to lift, transport, and reorient objects. Examples of complex machinery include hydraulically-powered machines, such as hydraulic lifts, or other complex devices. Due the complexity of many heavy machines used for lifting, transporting, and reorienting objects, such machines are prone to breaking down, thus requiring frequent maintenance and repair. Additionally, the complexity of such machines adds to the costs associated with the purchase of the machines and training of personnel to use the machines.
Other methods and techniques include manually lifting, transporting, and reorienting the objects without extraneous devices. Obviously, such brute-force methods and techniques used to lift, transport, and reorient objects introduce the possibility of many negative side effects, such as musculoskeletal ailments, fatigue, and serious injury.
Some extraneous devices for facilitating manual lifting, transporting, and reorienting objects without the use of complex machinery are known. Examples of such extraneous devices include dollies, hand trucks, carts, cradles, and the like. Certain traditional manually-driven devices may be configured to roll an object over, or reorientation an object between two different orientations, however, they suffer from various shortcomings. For example, many extraneous devices are not equipped to comply with manual lifting or roll-over regulations (e.g., Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards) for large and heavy objects. Such devices may meet the lifting regulations at certain instances (e.g., near the initiation of rotation) during a transition of an object from a first orientation to a second orientation. However, such devices do not account for the position of the center of gravity of the object, and thus fail to meet the lifting regulations at other instances (e.g., near the conclusion of rotation) during the transition. Accordingly, the use of these types of extraneous devices may promote a rapid and unexpected increase in the overturning momentum of an object in transition, which can dangerously and strenuously impact the user.